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    José María Zabalza: Biography

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    José María Zabalza was a Spanish screenwriter and film director active from 1955 until his death in 1985. He graduated with degrees in economics and film directing. In 1955, he founded Haz Films and directed his first two films There is Also Sky Over the Sea and Burial of an Official in Spring. Facing censorship issues, he turned to theater in the late 1950s and 1960s before returning to film with I Am Not a Murderer in 1963. Throughout his career, he alternated between art house and genre films, working with both professional and non-professional actors on productions in Spain and abroad. Zabalza directed over 20 films in varied genres until his death.

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    José María Zabalza: Biography

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    José María Zabalza was a Spanish screenwriter and film director active from 1955 until his death in 1985. He graduated with degrees in economics and film directing. In 1955, he founded Haz Films and directed his first two films There is Also Sky Over the Sea and Burial of an Official in Spring. Facing censorship issues, he turned to theater in the late 1950s and 1960s before returning to film with I Am Not a Murderer in 1963. Throughout his career, he alternated between art house and genre films, working with both professional and non-professional actors on productions in Spain and abroad. Zabalza directed over 20 films in varied genres until his death.

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    José María Zabalza was a Spanish screenwriter and film director active from 1955 until his death in 1985. He graduated with degrees in economics and film directing. In 1955, he founded Haz Films and directed his first two films There is Also Sky Over the Sea and Burial of an Official in Spring. Facing censorship issues, he turned to theater in the late 1950s and 1960s before returning to film with I Am Not a Murderer in 1963. Throughout his career, he alternated between art house and genre films, working with both professional and non-professional actors on productions in Spain and abroad. Zabalza directed over 20 films in varied genres until his death.

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    26 views4 pages

    José María Zabalza: Biography

    Uploaded by

    AMITAVA RAY
    José María Zabalza was a Spanish screenwriter and film director active from 1955 until his death in 1985. He graduated with degrees in economics and film directing. In 1955, he founded Haz Films and directed his first two films There is Also Sky Over the Sea and Burial of an Official in Spring. Facing censorship issues, he turned to theater in the late 1950s and 1960s before returning to film with I Am Not a Murderer in 1963. Throughout his career, he alternated between art house and genre films, working with both professional and non-professional actors on productions in Spain and abroad. Zabalza directed over 20 films in varied genres until his death.

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    José María Zabalza

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    José María Zabalza

    Born 1928

    Irún Spain

    Died 1985

    Madrid, Spain

    Education Bachelor's in economics and bachelor's in film directing

    (I.I.E.C.)

    Alma mater Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Escuela Oficial de

    Cine de España (IIEC)

    Occupation Film director, screenwriter, director and theater writer

    Years active 1955-1985 (film)

    Spouse(s) Ana Satrova

    José María Zabalza (1928–1985) was a Spanish screenwriter and film director.[1]

    Contents

     1Biography
     2Filmography
     3Theater
     4References
     5Bibliography
     6External links

    Biography[edit]
    Graduate in the Faculty of Political and Economic Sciences of Madrid, and after
    practicing for a short period as an economist, he decides to present himself to the
    newly inaugurated I.I.E.C. (Institute of Investigations and Cinematographic
    Experiences), official school of cinema that opened its doors in February 1947.
    Zabalza passed the entrance exam in the specialty of direction for which there were
    only five places. His classmates in promotion (which was the second promotion of
    the school) were Ricardo Muñoz Suay, Jesús Franco and Juan García Atienza. In
    those days the students Jose Gutierrez Maesso, Luis Garcia Berlanga, Florentino
    Soria and Eduardo Ducay were also part of the school.
    Jose Maria Zabalza was a precursor in the founding of production companies in the
    Basque country. In 1955 he founded the production company Haz Films. With Haz
    Films he filmed There is also sky over the sea (1955) and Burial of an official in
    spring (1958).
    Zabalza's professional startup style as a filmmaker was clearly and markedly within
    what has been called author's cinema or art house cinema. There is also sky over
    the sea was probably one of the first films inspired by Italian Neorealism in Spain
    and the first in the Basque country. And as Luis Garcia Berlanga said many times:
    "Burial of a civil servant in the spring, was the first film of dark humor cinema era in
    Spain".
    The difficulties with the classification of premiere and distribution, by the Francoist
    censorship and the General Secretariat of Cinematography and Theater, did not
    allow an adequate distribution of these two films. This makes the newly created
    production company Haz Films have to close. José María Zabalza decides to take
    refuge in the theater in order to continue with his artistic career. During this time he
    wrote and directed several plays: Camerino Sin Biombo (1959), Autopsia de María
    Magdalena (1960), Las arañas travel by night (1961), Pensión Rosita (1962) and
    Ginebra for dinner (1962).
    In 1963, Zabalza reached an agreement to direct his first film with a production
    company that is not of his property. The film had the provisional title of The noise of
    the silence, to later take the definitive title, and supposedly more commercial one, of
    I am not a murderer (1963). The film as its first title indicated formally works with
    silence and long shots. Zabalza was inspired by the cinema of Ingmar Bergman and
    Michelangelo Antonioni, once again focusing on a style of European auteur cinema,
    revealing his inveterate cinephilia. Another strong feature that is shown in his films
    after his first three feature films is the combination of professional actors of great
    name with non-professional actors, people recruited on the street or among their
    friends. The film takes place in natural settings of Hondarribia, Irún and Zarautz.
    In 1964, he founded the Uranzu Films production company with his friend Carlos
    Serrano Tell (father of the filmmaker Carlos Serrano Azcona) and entered a second
    stage of his career as a filmmaker. With it he decides to recover a little from the
    difficulties of distribution suffered by his first films. His artistic line becomes lighter
    and commercial comedy type of film, except Camerino without a screen that is an
    intimate film filmed in San Sebastian in interiors with the actress Gemma Cuervo.
    After several films made with Uranzu films Carlos Serrano Tell decides to leave his
    tasks as a producer to be able to focus fully on his profession and his family life. The
    move away of cinema of his partner in Uranzu Films supposes to a great extent a
    change in the career of Zabalza that was dedicated thereafter to the cinema of genre
    mainly as hired director. You can consider this the third stage in his filmography. In
    this stage Zabalza will shoot a large number of films in genres as disparate as the
    Spaghuetti Western, horror movies, gangster movies or soft erotic films. Some of
    these films belong to the era in which international coproductions were lavished, with
    several films filmed in the former Yugoslavia. Perhaps the most internationally known
    film is the cult film that shot with the actor Paul Naschy The Fury of the
    Wolfman (1972). This moment of his filmography was not exempt from personal
    difficulties and for some of these films he came to be cataloged as the Spanish Ed
    Wood. He got to shoot three films at once or one in 24 hours and with 12 cameras,
    entitled The Return of the Vampires (1972) with Simon Andreu that did not have its
    commercial premiere, due once again to the Francoist censorship, until 1985 as The
    Mystery of Cynthia Baird.
    Zabalza as a filmmaker certainly fell into oblivion, but in recent years he has lived a
    renewed recognition with the publication of the book José María Zabalza: Cinema,
    Bohemia and Survival (2011) by Gurutz Albisu and the documentary film about his
    cinema and life, Director Z: el vendedor de ilusiones, de Oskar Tejedor premiered at
    the Festival Internacional de Cine Sitges.

    Filmography[edit]
    1. 1985 El misterio de Cynthia Baird
    2. 1984 La de Troya en el Palmar
    3. 1983 Al oeste de Río Grande
    4. 1978 Aberri Eguna 78
    5. 1975 Divorcio a la andaluza
    6. 1974 Un torero para la historia
    7. 1972 The Fury of the Wolfman
    8. 1971 El vendedor de ilusiones
    9. 1971 20,000 dólares por un cadáver
    10.1970 Bullets over Dallas
    11.1970 Rebels of Arizona
    12.1969 El regreso de Al Capone
    13.1969 Homicidios en Chicago
    14.1967 El milagro del cante
    15.1967 Camerino Without a Folding Screen
    16.1966 Algunas lecciones de amor
    17.1965 Julieta engaña a Romeo
    18.1964 Dammed pistols of Dallas
    19.1963 Yo no soy un asesino
    20.1958 Entierro de un funcionario en primavera
    21.1955 También hay cielo sobre el mar

    Theater[edit]
    1. 1962 Ginebra para cenar
    2. 1962 Pensión Rosita
    3. 1961 Las arañas viajan de noche
    4. 1960 Autopsia de María Magdalena
    5. 1959 Camerino Without a Folding Screen
    References[edit]
    1. ^ Cowie & Elley p.487

    Bibliography[edit]
     Peter Cowie & Derek Elley. World Filmography: 1967. Fairleigh Dickinson University
    Press, 1977.

    External links[edit]
     José María Zabalza on IMDb

    BNE: XX1131204

    BNF: cb169647329 (data)

    ISNI: 0000 0001 1836 0993

    VIAF: 169434874

    WorldCat Identities: viaf-169434874
    Categories: 

     1928 births
     1985 deaths
     Spanish screenwriters
     Spanish film directors
     20th-century screenwriters

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